Impact of valid selection procedures on work-force productivity.

Decision theoretic equations were used to estimate the impact of a valid test (the Programmer Aptitude Test; PAT) on productivity if it were used to select new computer programmers for one year in (a) the federal government and (b) the national economy. A newly developed technique was used to estimate the standard deviation of the dollar value of employee job performance, which in the past has been the most difficult and expensive item of required information to estimate. For the federal government and the U.S. economy, separately, results are presented for different selection ratios and for different assumed values for the validity of previously used selection procedures. The impact of the PAT on programmer productivity was substantial for all combinations of assumptions. The results support the conclusion that hundreds of millions of dollars in increased productivity could be realized by increasing the validity of selection decisions in this occupation. Likely similarities between computer programmers and other occupations are discussed. It is concluded that the impact of valid selection procedures on work-force productivity is considerably greater than most personnel psychologists have believed.